9.8.09

Dynamic SQL in sql server

Dynamic SQL in sql server:

Most of the cases, our requirements will be dynamic. Sometimes, the person will request for one column to be fetched from the database, may be two columns. The decisions will be taken at run time.

I used to face a requirement to fetch the data based on the login user. userA needs 5 columns and userB needs 2 columns.

I need to have a common code to satisfy both the requirement. Such kind of scenario can be handled using dynamic SQL.

Query will be generated at the run time and it will be executed to fetch the result. The dynamically created query will be executed by a special system stored procedure namely sp_executeSQL. Let's see a small code snippet on this.

-- Creating a table named venkatTable
drop table venkatTable
create table venkatTable(id int identity(1,1) primary key, nam varchar(100))
insert into venkatTable values('Venkatesan Prabu')
insert into venkatTable values('Subashini')
insert into venkatTable values('Jayakantham')
insert into venkatTable values('Arunachalam')
insert into venkatTable values('Santhi')
select * from venkattable


-- Am declaring three variables @val3 will be a query created.
-- It should be executed dynamically using sp_executesql


declare @val1 varchar(100)
declare @val2 varchar(100)
declare @val3 nvarchar(100)


set @val1 ='id'
set @val2='nam'


set @val3= 'select '+ @val1 + ','+ @val2 + ' from venkattable'
print @val3


exec sp_executesql @val3





Thanks and Regards,

Venkatesan Prabu .J

Inner Join in SQL Server

Inner join in SQL Server:

Usually, in a normalized database the values related to a particular column will be referenced in other table.

Considering, there is company with 1000 engineers. In storing the employees, instead of storing engineer as the designation for each employee. Normal forms advised
us to store the engineer value in a small table with id as reference. This id can be stored in the employee table.

So that, it will improve the storage.

Now, I got all the data segregated into different tables and I need to join it into a single result set.

In that case,we will opt join operations in SQL Server. It will enable you to consolidate the data and provide you in an expected format. There are various joins available in SQL Server.

Let's see inner join option in SQL Server. This will join the table mutually based on a common column. The syntax looks like,

table1 inner join table2 on table1.column=table2.column

Let's see some example to learn the join operation in sql server.

-- lets see a chatting messenger example,
-- Am creating three tables, 1 holds the name of the person and 2 holds the mapping between the friends.
--Considering am giving a friends request to another user

drop table venkatTable
create table venkatTable(id int identity(1,1) primary key, nam varchar(100))
insert into venkatTable values('Venkatesan Prabu')
insert into venkatTable values('Subashini')
insert into venkatTable values('Jayakantham')
insert into venkatTable values('Arunachalam')
insert into venkatTable values('Santhi')

drop table friendTable
create table friendTable(id int, friendid int, valueStatus int)
insert into friendTable values(1,2,0)
insert into friendTable values(1,3,1)
insert into friendTable values(2,4,0)
insert into friendTable values(2,3,2)


drop table status
create table status(id int, status varchar(100))
insert into status values(1,'Approved')
insert into status values(0,'pending')
insert into status values(2,'DisApproved')


Now, Lets join tableA, TableB and TableC directly :

select a.nam,b.id,b.friendid,c.status
from venkatTable a inner join friendTable b on a.id=b.id
inner join status c on b.valueStatus = c.id





Joining tableA and TableB on another combination:

select a.nam,b.id,b.friendid
from venkatTable a inner join friendTable b on b.friendid=a.id





Fetching the name, friendname and Status (By joining three tables) :
select distinct t.nam,t1.nam,t.status,t.id,t.friendid,t1.id ,t1.friendid from
(
select row_number() over(order by b.id,b.friendid) as r1, a.nam,b.id,b.friendid,c.status
from venkatTable a inner join friendTable b on a.id=b.id
inner join status c on b.valueStatus = c.id
)t
inner join (
select row_number() over(order by b.id,b.friendid) as r2,a.nam,b.id,b.friendid
from venkatTable a inner join friendTable b on b.friendid=a.id
)
t1 on t.r1=t1.r2
Here we have used row_number() function of SQL Server 2005. It's used to generate the row numbers in your result set.
Thanks and Regards,
Venkatesan Prabu .J

7.8.09

Reset identity column in SQL Server

Identity column in SQL Server:

Identity column is an easiest way to generate sequence unique number in a column of the table. Considering am having a column named "ID" with property as identity with starting value as 1 and it should generate values increased by 1. The syntax is,

id int identity(1,1) -- This column will generate the values 1,2,3,4,....etc...

Now, let's goto our typical problem statement reseeding the identity column.

Problem statement:

Am having five records in the table, the id values 1,2,3,4,5. Now, I am deleting the record 5. After wards am trying to insert another record. Unfortunately we will miss 5 and the record will be inserted with the value 6. How to sort down this issue?

Solution:

SQL server is providing a handy solution to solve this issue. The command is DBCC Checkident. Lets see the syntax for this,

DBCC checkident(tablename, reseed, value to start or reseed the column)

Lets see a small example on this,

First code snippet is to show the problem and the second code snippet is the solution for the problem.

drop table venkatTable
create table venkatTable(id int identity(1,1) primary key, nam varchar(100))
insert into venkatTable values('Venkatesan Prabu')
insert into venkatTable values('Subashini')
insert into venkatTable values('Jayakantham')
insert into venkatTable values('Arunachalam')
insert into venkatTable values('Santhi')

select * from venkatTable
delete venkatTable where id=5

insert into venkatTable values('Santhi')

select * from venkatTable




drop table venkatTable
create table venkatTable(id int identity(1,1) primary key, nam varchar(100))
insert into venkatTable values('Venkatesan Prabu')
insert into venkatTable values('Subashini')
insert into venkatTable values('Jayakantham')
insert into venkatTable values('Arunachalam')
insert into venkatTable values('Santhi')

select * from venkatTable
delete venkatTable where id=5

--Am resetting the id columnwith the maximum value of the column.


declare @val int
select @val=max(id) from venkattable
dbcc checkident (venkatTable,reseed,@val)

insert into venkatTable values('Santhi')

select * from venkatTable

If you dont want to reset the seed value of the column, we can use noreseed option in the abov command,

DBCC checkident(tablename,noreseed)

Thanks and Regards,

Venkatesan Prabu .J

6.8.09

ASP.Net error

While trying my website creation, I got a peculiar error in ASP.net.

I have dragged the SQLDatasource and placed it in my web page. On pointing the data source, I got the below error.
"Following error occured while getting connection string information from configuration. "Cannot get web application service"

On checking microsoft site, I came to know that its a familiar bug and the solution seems to be closing the IDE and reopen the same.
This solution seems to be working fine.

Thanks and Regards,
Venkatesan Prabu .J

My T-SQL Gallery @code.msdn.microsoft


Created my own T-SQL Gallery in Microsoft site. Do visit the same and share your feedback,

http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/VenkatSQLSample/Thread/List.aspx

Thanks and Regards,
Venkatesan Prabu .J

SQL Server Interview questions - Part 1

What is the significance of NULL value and why should we avoid permitting null values?
Null means no entry has been made. It implies that the value is either unknown or undefined.We should avoid permitting null values because Column with NULL values can't have PRIMARY KEY constraints. Certain calculations can be inaccurate if NULL columns are involved.

What is SQL whats its uses and its component ?
The Structured Query Language (SQL) is foundation for all relational database systems. Most of the large-scale databases use the SQL to define all user and administrator interactions. It enable us to retrieve the data from based on our exact requirement. We will be given a flexibility to store the data in our own format.


The DML component of SQL comprises four basic statements:
* SELECT to get rows from tables
* UPDATE to update the rows of tables
* DELETE to remove rows from tables
* INSERT to add new rows to tables


What is DTS in SQL Server ?
Data Transformation Services is used to transfer the data from one source to our required destination. Considering am having some data in sql server and I need to transfer the data to Excel destination. Its highly possible with dialogue based tool called Data Transformation services. More customization can be achieved using SSIS. A specialized tool used to do such migration works.


What is the difference between SQL and Pl/Sql ?

Straight forward. SQL is a single statement to finish up our work.Considering, I need some data from a particular table. “Select * from table” will fetch the necessary information. Where as I need to do some row by row processing. In that case, we need to go for Procedural Logic / SQL.

What is the significance of NULL value and why should we avoid permitting null values?
Null means no entry has been made. It implies that the value is either unknown or undefined.We should avoid permitting null values because Column with NULL values can't have PRIMARY KEY constraints. Certain calculations can be inaccurate if NULL columns are involved.

Difference between primary key and Unique key?
Both constraints will share a common property called uniqueness. The data in the column should be unique. The basic difference is,
· Primary key won’t allow null value. Whereas, unique key will accept null value but only one null value.
· On creating primary key, it will automatically format the data inturn creates clustered index on the table. Whereas, this characteristics is not associated with unique key.
· Only one primary key can be created for the table. Any number of Unique key can be created for the table.

Select Statement in SQL Server

Select Statement in SQL Server

String Functions in sql server

String Functions in sql server
Substring/Len/replace/Ltrim/Rtrim

SQL Server Interview Question - Part 2

What is normalization?

Normalization is the basic concept used in designing a database. Its nothing but, an advise given to the database to have minimal repetition of data, highly structured, highly secured, easy to retrieve. In high level definition, the Process of organizing data into tables is referred to as normalization.


What is a stored procedure:
Stored procedures are precompiled T-SQL statements combined to perform a single task of several tasks. Its basically like a Macro so when you invoke the Stored procedure, you actually run a set of statements. As, its precompiled statement, execution of Stored procedure is compatatively high when compared to an ordinary T-SQL statement.


What is the difference between UNION ALL Statement and UNION ?
The main difference between UNION ALL statement and UNION is UNION All statement is much faster than UNION,the reason behind this is that because UNION ALL statement does not look for duplicate rows, but on the other hand UNION statement does look for duplicate rows, whether or not they exist.

Example for Stored Procedure?
They are three kinds of stored procedures,1.System stored procedure – Start with sp_2. User defined stored procedure – SP created by the user.3. Extended stored procedure – SP used to invoke a process in the external systems.Example for system stored proceduresp_helpdb - Database and its propertiessp_who2 – Gives details about the current user connected to your system. sp_renamedb – Enable you to rename your database


What is a trigger?

Triggers are precompiled statements similar to Stored Procedure. It will automatically invoke for a particular operation. Triggers are basically used to implement business rules.


What is a view?
If we have several tables in a db and we want to view only specific columns from specific tables we can go for views. It would also suffice the needs of security some times allowing specfic users to see only specific columns based on the permission that we can configure on the view. Views also reduce the effort that is required for writing queries to access specific columns every time.


What is an Index?
When queries are run against a db, an index on that db basically helps in the way the data is sorted to process the query for faster and data retrievals are much faster when we have an index.


What are the types of indexes available with SQL Server?

There are basically two types of indexes that we use with the SQL ServerClustered -

1. It will format the entire table, inturn physically sort the table.

2. Only one clustered index can be created for a table.

3. Data will be located in the leaf level.

4. By default, primary key will create clustered index on the table.

Non-Clustered Index

1. It wont touch the structure of the table.

2. It forms an index table as reference to the exact data.

3. A reference to the data will be located in the leaf level.

4. For a table, we can create 249 non clustered index.

Happy Learning!!!
Regards,
Venkatesan Prabu .J

SQL Interview question

Extent Vs Page?

Pages are low level unit to store the exact data in sql server. Basically, the data will be stored in the mdf, ldf, ndf files. Inturn, pages are logical units available in sql server.The size of the page is 8KB.

Eight consecutive pages will form an extent 8 * 8KB = 64KB.

Thus I/O level operation will be happening at pages level.The pages will hold a template information at the start of each page (header of the page).

They are,

1. page number,

2. page type,

3. the amount of free space on the page,

4. the allocation unit ID of the object that owns the page.

Extents will be classifed into two types,

1. Uniform extents

2. Mixed extents

Uniform Extents:It occupied or used by a single object. Inturn, a single object will hold the entire 8 pages.Mixed

Extents:Mulitple objects will use the same extent. SQL Server will allow a max of eight objects to use a shared extent.

Property of SQL Server :Initally if an object is created, sql server will allocate the object to the mixed extent and once if the size reaches 8 pages and more... immediately, a new uniform extent will be provided for that particular object.

Herecomes, our fragmentation and reindexing concepts.



Best Joke - Enjoy it

Best Joke - Enjoy it